waiting

if we’re waiting for enlightenment to dawn inside our mind, we’ll be waiting forever.

the mind will always be the mind, and enlightenment will always be our true nature. these truths are true simultaneously.

we think we can only perceive through the mind, so we’ve focused our attention on all the data coming through it, as if thanks to that mountain of information we’ll be able to piece enlightenment together.

what we’re looking for is paradoxically the very attention we're focusing upon the mind in order to find what we're looking for.

we ignore it first of all because we assume it's something we don't have yet and second because it's so very obvious and basic, and "buddha nature" is often depicted as something incredible and spectacular.

fear of nothing

deep down, we know the mental structure we've created of who we are to be a pretty shaky thing. this shakiness terrifies us, because we think that the structure's collapse would mean the worst thing imaginable.

this deep fear is what keeps us from the freedom that is encountered when, after the smoke of the crumbling structure clears, the limitless expanse of freed consciousness is revealed.

attention no longer fixed on an object, and yet experience of being still present, consciousness has no choice but to acknowledge itself as formlessness, openness; pure, aware presence.

the looooooooooong spiritual journey

this great long spiritual journey, this epic pilgrimage of the soul which gives us such a great sense of specialness, the whole process of transformation, gradual liberation through insights, climbing upwards, residing in the higher centers of the brain, expanding our consciousness, opening ourselves to the energy of the universe... and on and on and on and on... is a pretty complicated thing.

what is called “self-realization” is actually pretty simple. it consists of seeing what’s always been there, what’s been so all-pervadingly present in every moment that the complexities of the mind have been able to rob attention from it.

there's no solution

we spend so much time, so much energy looking and looking and looking for the solution in the mind. our frantic search will continue as long as we look in the mind for a solution.

when it comes to truth there is in fact no solution, because solutions can only exist in the mind. where there is no problem, there is no solution. problems can only exist in the mind.

peace is besides the mind, something completely outside of it. peace isn't broken and in need of fixing - it's alywas there, no matter how strongly we choose to focus on what's going on inside the mind.

step into the mind-realm and you're in the arena of problems and solutions. that's fine, it's how our world operates. it's useful for a lot of things.

but to experience peace, truth, being, we have to stop keeping our attention fixed on the mind, raise our vision and see what's beyond its walls, what's all around it. it's so obvious!